Health plans welcome reforms to strengthen Medicare Advantage.

However, a proposal for flat program funding at a time of sharply rising medical costs

and high utilization of care will directly impact seniors' coverage.

If finalized, this proposal could result in benefit reductions and higher costs for 35 million

seniors and people with disabilities when they renew their Medicare Advantage

coverage in October 26. Learn more at a HIP.org.

The divide in the party now is who believes that we have to go on offense or that Trump

in his second term is an existential threat to our democracy and who believes we should

just wait, like in

the first Trump administration, for things to get bad and he'll lose under his own weight.

Hello, hello, and welcome to The Conversation. I'm Dasha Burns, Politico's White House

Bureau Chief, and every week on this show, I invite one of the most compelling and sometimes unexpected power players in Washington and beyond in for a chat to find out how they are navigating and shaping this incredible era of American politics.

And this week, I got the chance to speak with Democratic Senator Alyssa Slotkin from the great

swing state of Michigan. Slotkin and I spoke the morning after President Trump's state of the union

address, which means we got to debrief on a range of topics that the president focused on.

We talked about affordability, the cost of living, health care, immigration, national security, and so much more.

But one thing we really dug in on is where her party stands in this political moment,

not just in response to Trump's marathon speech or even his presidency in general,

but looking ahead to the midterms and beyond, what is the path forward for Democrats.

Now, she's called for her party to find their, quote, alpha energy. And she has some ideas for how

she would address the party's biggest brand problems. Senator Alyssa Slotkin joins the conversation.

Senator Alyssa Slotkin, thank you so much for joining the conversation.

...